I teach my sister how to code, she teaches me how to teach part 2

In the previous post I pretended to be a teacher to learn about communication. Now let’s go on with this strange but interesting experience.

This post is part of a series:

• I teach my sister how to code, she teaches me how to teach part 1
• I teach my sister how to code, she teaches me how to teach part 2

Chapter 8. The “boom” button

“Giù la testa” Sergio Leone 1971

Now my sister wants to make the button red. She knows at this point that presentation is HTML and behavior is javascript. It comes naturally to her to think that the color of the button goes in the HTML file.

Now I’m tempted to tell her “no”, or rather, it can fit in HTML, but it would be better to put it in a CSS file. But, hey, she doesn’t know what CSS is yet.

Wrong! The answer is just “yes”. We don’t give a damn about CSS right now, for the information she has had so far the inline style is good enough.

Lesson learned: don’t be afraid to simplify things. A lot.

Talking about style has nothing to do with programming. It’s a completely new concept, I would have to start a new chapter, this would take time and bring us too far.

Lesson learned: learn to say something like “we are not ready to deal with this yet”.

Chapter 9. A task for her, a task for me

The “boom” button task gives me the opportunity to explain three things: selectors, events and functions. I’m excited, but I must not be in a hurry. It’s not important to have our button immediately, it’s important to clearly identify all the steps to take to get it done. This is my task, and it isn’t easy even for such a small task, let alone a whole project.

Lesson learned: split tasks into small steps.

Chapter 10. Why is this done?

It’s shocking, but I must confess: there are a lot of thing I don’t know about my own job. Non-technical people’s questions force us to see things from a different perspective, we have to know not only how to do things but also why. It’s truly thrilling.

Lesson learned: If you can’t explain something, maybe you don’t know it. although it seems trivial or obvious.

“The Miracle Worker” Arthur Penn 1962